Cheryl Platz is an internationally renowned design leader, author, speaker, and actor based in the Los Angeles area. Her book Design Beyond Devices is available via Rosenfeld Media and most online booksellers in print and digital formats. She is currently the Director of User Experience, Player Platform at Riot Games, and owner of design education company Ideaplatz, LLC.

In 2020, Cheryl was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and received life-changing surgeries from Dr. William Ericson to restore her ability to work at full productivity while using ergonomic equipment. Afterwards, she began publicly advocating for greater awareness of this genetic disorder. In 2021 Cheryl launched a new chapter of her life with her husband, actor David Foubert by moving to Los Angeles for her new role at Riot Games.

Design Career

An East Coast native and graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in computer science and human-computer interaction, Cheryl spent the first half of her life in Pennsylvania.  At Carnegie Mellon, she had the unique opportunity to study with Randy Pausch (“The Last Lecture”), who she counted as a teacher, mentor, manager (during her time as a TA in his Building Virtual Worlds class), and eventually a friend during his sabbatical at Electronic Arts. 

After graduation, she passed through Orlando and San Francisco before making her home in Seattle for 17 years.

Cheryl’s professional career began with video gaming (Maxis/EA, Griptonite Games) and theme park technology (Walt Disney World), but she also spent years working on cloud and enterprise software like Azure (Microsoft) and technology for large scale philanthropy (Gates Foundation) as well as groundbreaking consumer products like Alexa (Amazon) and Cortana. She has now returned to the entertainment industry with her current role at Riot Games, applying everything she’s learned about cross-device experience strategy to bring groundbreaking experiences to players worldwide.